


That Look in His Eyes

by suitesamba



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Language, M/M, Oral Sex, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:44:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has his reasons, over the years, for running away. And Sherlock has his for finding him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Look in His Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: Not mine. Never were, never will be. No profit is being made from this amateur work.**

One

The first time John left, he didn’t take time to plan his exit, or to think about how he would stay hidden from Sherlock Holmes for as long as it took to work off his frustration. He’s been looking forward to their upcoming trip to Prague for a forensics conference. But a case had come up, and Sherlock had thrown himself into it – he’d thrown _both_ of them into it – even though, as usual, John hadn’t asked to be thrown. Sherlock was off at the library now, having exhausted every source of historic maps of London from the Victorian Era he could find on-line. He’d texted an hour ago.

_At the library looking for maps. Left note on table. Don’t wait up._

Did he ever wait up?

The referenced note on the table, hurriedly scrawled and only just legible, informed John that he’d cancelled the trip. He hadn’t consulted John about this. The note was on top of a print-out of the flight credit receipt from the airline. A grocery list was written on the bottom of the receipt. 

_Bleach. Vinegar. Salt. Alum. Ammonia. Boric acid. Epsom salt. Moth balls. Lye. Acetone. Raspberry biscuits…_

Typical Sherlock list.

John stared at the note for some time, then dropped it onto the table and looked at the grocery list, staring at it until the items, written in Sherlock’s untidy scrawl, blurred together. He crumpled the list and dropped it on top of the note. He stood there for several moments, fingers resting lightly on the table, drumming a banal rhythm, then went up to his room, unpacked his Prague suitcase, and repacked it with a different sort of clothing altogether.

His own note to Sherlock was brief and contained no specifics. _Going on holiday alone. Good luck with the case._

He disabled the GPS on his phone before he left London and purchased his train tickets with cash. He didn’t doubt Sherlock could find him if he wanted, but didn’t intend to make it easy.

He was in Paris by evening, on the sleeper train to Barcelona that night.

He found a small hotel, quaint but just affordable, a block from the ocean, an hour northeast of the city. There were a good many tourists staying there, and he had dinner with an elderly American woman and her son whom he met in the lobby while checking in. The son was a few years older than John, and it took John far too long – well into the evening when they were downing pints together at a local pub – to realize that the man was interested in more than conversation.

The casual hand on his thigh didn’t make him jump up and upset the table or spit out his beer. It was surprising – yes – but the alcohol had relaxed him and he was in Barcelona, not London, on holiday where things like this might happen, because he was a stranger, and he wasn’t acting himself. He smiled at Frank, shrugging. 

“Already attached,” he explained.

Frank glanced at his left hand.

John followed his gaze then gave an apologetic shrug. 

“Attached, but not married.” He found himself wanting to explain more, to make up details about this fictitious partner who wasn’t, but lifted his pint and took a long drink instead.

“Ahh. Vacationing alone, then?” Frank nodded in apparent understanding, then signaled for another drink.

John held up a finger as well.

Later that night, when his mobile vibrated on the nightstand, John reached over and did something he hadn’t done voluntarily in years. He powered it off. No one texted him at this time of night except Sherlock, and he didn’t want to think about Sherlock right now.

He wondered why Frank assumed he was gay.

He wondered why he hadn’t told him that he wasn’t. 

Sleep was a long time coming.

~~~

He bought an English-language detective novel and read beside the pool, then went for a walk on the beach. His shoulders burned badly the first day and he wore a t-shirt the next. On the third day, he let himself be persuaded into a sightseeing tour with the Americans. Frank was interesting company, despite his inability to tell a gay man from a straight one. His mother was gracious and charming, and referred to them as ‘you boys.’ She was a retired university librarian, well-traveled and well-read, and her son obviously doted on her.

And for a moment, while John was trying to explain exactly how a bathroom differed from a toilet, and what exactly an en suite was, and who said loo, he wished his own mother had been more…well, more _like this._ Interesting. Engaged. Alive in the moment.

When they got back to their hotel, there was a package waiting for him at the desk.

The postmark was London, and the return address 221B Baker Street.

The package contained his swimming shorts, which he had somehow managed not to transfer from his Prague suitcase to his Barcelona bag. He’d already bought another pair. Besides the shorts, there was a tube of expensive sunscreen and the newest novel by one of John’s favorite authors.

And no note.

How the _fuck_ had he…? 

“Package from home?” 

Frank, unlit cigarette in hand, was on his way back outside for a smoke.

John stuck the package under his arm. “Right. Forgot a thing or two.”

Frank laughed. “I’d have just bought new,” he said with a shrug. “It’s nice to have someone at home looking out for you.”

John agreed. But Sherlock wasn’t exactly looking out for him, was he? Spying more like. Sending him a message of sorts. John put the package on his bed then walked outside and found Frank. They went back to the pub for a couple of drinks, then walked along the ocean shore. John was quiet, thinking about how the hell Sherlock had found him. He’d turned off the GPS in his phone, used cash for every transaction. He’d used his laptop a few times, but hadn’t posted anything, or sent e-mail. 

Even if he’d had Mycroft’s help to trace his passport to Spain, how could Sherlock have known precisely _where_ in Spain he was? What city? What hotel?

When they walked past a young couple, hand in hand in the moonlight, John was inordinately glad that his eyes strayed to the woman.

Two

When John threatened to pack up and leave, exasperated and tired even after two restful weeks of doing nothing but picking up shells and stones on the Mediterranean shore, Sherlock admitted that he’d installed an app on John’s phone that turned the GPS back on automatically.

John, for his part, realized that Sherlock could have kept quiet and not admitted what he’d done. 

Nevertheless, there was a long row, and quite a bit of ranting by John, and Sherlock calmly, very calmly, stated that he would _not_ promise to stay away from John’s phone. That if John’s life was in danger, he’d do what he had to do – _anything_ he had to do – to ensure his safe return.

And no, he wasn’t _spying_ on John while he was in Barcelona. That said with a raised eyebrow and a slight tilt to his head.

“Go on then,” John had said, dropping into his chair and staring at Sherlock. “What was I doing, then?”

Sherlock opened his mouth, then unaccountably, unbelievably, closed it.

“Getting too much sun,” he said. “Care for some tea?”

They stared at each other.

“Please,” John said, after a significant pause.

And the matter of John leaving for a two-week holiday in Barcelona without telling Sherlock where he was going or when he’d be back – was closed.

And life at 221B carried on. 

John, as he often did when he felt overly used and taken for granted by Sherlock, went back to the clinic for another long-term fill-in stint. He ignored Sherlock’s intrusive, demanding texts but was absolutely incapable of saying no to a romp through a seedy section of London at night when Sherlock would close his laptop and jump up from the table, giddy, a fresh discovery waiting to be chased down. He ended up with a broken arm six months after Barcelona when he fell off a fire escape and Sherlock landed on top of him. Sherlock, lucky bastard, walked away unharmed. 

He needed surgery to set the bones, and before the cast came off for good, was dating the desk nurse at the orthopedic clinic. That relationship didn’t last long, but it seemed to break whatever dry spell he was having, and for the next year and a half, he went from one promising relationship to the next, each one ending after two or three months. If John didn’t bollix it up himself by cancelling one too many dates because he was pressed against an alley wall covering Sherlock’s back or getting his face stitched up after a scuffle with Sherlock, a security guard and a very surprised jewelry thief, Sherlock always managed to put a final nail in the relationship coffin.

He’d show up at the flat when he was clearly supposed to be gone for hours, putter about in the kitchen while John and his girlfriend were watching a movie on television, say something so ridiculously inappropriate, always with an oh-so-casual straight face – _John, did you pick up that hemorrhoid cream?_ or _The lab called with those blood test results – you’re still negative_ or _My God, John. Look at this credit card bill! What’s this charge to ‘The Toy Closet?’_

Never quite a lie, of course. He _was_ supposed to bring back that cream for Mrs. Hudson. He’d had a _malaria_ test. And _The Toy Closet_ was a children’s charity. He’d made a donation in Mrs. Hudson’s name for her birthday. It was his credit card, for God’s sake, not _their_ joint account, and why was Sherlock looking at it anyway? But it always left him scrambling for an explanation, and Sherlock managed to look both affronted and confused when he set upon him later.

But when Sherlock told Amy - sweet, pretty, affectionate, young Amy – that they were in an “open” relationship, John didn’t explode. He took the very confused Amy home, then went to a pub and watched a football game and drank three pints and asked himself what he wanted.

He had enough money now for his own flat. Sherlock always split the bonuses with him, and his on-again, off-again stand-in work in this surgery or that provided for the basics. Yet he stayed. With Sherlock. With Sherlock unwittingly – or not – sabotaging one relationship after another. 

Sherlock had never indicated he wanted anything from John other than what they had. A very solid friendship, despite the eccentricities of Sherlock’s brilliance. A life as flat mates. Sherlock’s work, which bled over into John’s life, and became John’s work too. 

Sherlock wasn’t home when John returned to the flat. He sat down at the table, opened Sherlock’s laptop – Sherlock was an idiot if he didn’t think John knew the back door in – and booked a flight for later that night to Baltimore. 

He didn’t really have a plan, other than taking a commuter train from Baltimore to New York, where he’d find a hotel and spend a couple weeks in the city. 

Alone. 

He needed to think.

There was no use trying to cover his tracks to the States. He’d have to use his passport, and Sherlock could have Mycroft find out where exactly he’d entered the country. The best he could do was move by untraceable public transportation from Baltimore to New York.

He left Sherlock a brief note. _Need to think. Gone for a couple weeks._

Thinking this time involved a full confession to Frank, who happily came up from Boston with his new partner to see him, a gay bar, too much to drink, dancing – fuck, he _never_ danced – snogging a guy named Scott and waking up with a ridiculous hangover. 

The next day there was lunch with Frank and Gary, an interesting discussion about sexuality, an off-Broadway show. Another bar, another dance floor, another Scott to snog. 

Frank and Gary left, and John repeated the entire scene some days later, this time at a club, where he met a woman named Natalie, bought her a drink or two, snogged her on the dance floor, went back to her hotel, and woke up alone. Natalie was gone, and so was his wallet. 

Within twenty-four hours, the hotel notified him that a Mr. Holmes had paid his bill, though John hadn’t had any contact with Sherlock since he’d left London. 

Three

If New York had taught him anything, it was that he couldn’t use his sexuality to make any decisions or rule anything out. The excitement of those nights at the gay bars stayed with him; but he didn’t repeat the experiment in London. He didn’t even have it out with Sherlock for monitoring his credit card purchases, or throw his computer in the river when Sherlock admitted that Mycroft had spyware on both of their laptops that tracked IP addresses wherever they were. It was…what it was.

Sherlock seemed glad to have him back, and if he knew that he’d made several purchases at “Therapy” and that “Therapy” was actually a gay bar, he never said. 

They got wrapped up in a new case days after John returned, and it was all business and adrenaline and danger and intrigue again, and John turned down two temporary placements at a clinic in the space of a month.

He slept alone, largely celibate, but ran into Amy at a café one evening, and brought her back to the flat. Sherlock was gone for the night, monitoring incoming flights at Heathrow for some ridiculous but high-paying case he’d taken on, and John sat on his chair, trousers pushed down below his hips, while Amy knelt between his legs and gave him a magnificent blow job while he worked his hands under her t-shirt and held her breasts, working his thumbs over the outside of her silky bra, brushing against her nipples. He moved one hand to her neck, into her hair, and caressed her skull, resisting the urge to press her down onto him further.

The smallest of noises made him look up toward the doorway.

Sherlock was standing there, wind-blown, frozen in place, staring at them. At him.

John stared back.

Neither said a word. Amy hummed around him but his eyes were locked with Sherlock’s and he kept them open, fixed on Sherlock’s frozen frame in the doorway. 

Sherlock’s lips parted. He could not have known he’d made the gesture.

But it was all it took. John came explosively, without warning Amy. She raised her eyes up to John and he gripped her hair as he and Sherlock, friends, flat mates, partners in crime, stared at each other from across the room, paying no heed to the woman at John’s feet.

Sherlock turned quickly and left, was gone before Amy turned her head.

Four

This time, John loses himself in London. It is far easier to stay hidden when you know where you are, and can move around comfortably with the crowds. He takes cash out of scattered ATMs, sometimes traveling thirty minutes to a random tube stop to do so. The hotels are safe but inexpensive, and he pays cash. He goes to Heathrow to use the wireless internet there, at the internet kiosks, always a different one, varying the time of day.

His phone is on the kitchen table at 221B, atop his laptop. He’s left them there deliberately, letting Sherlock know that he won’t be answering his text messages or phone calls or using his own laptop to access the internet. The absence of his mobile’s familiar weight in his pocket is disconcerting and he buys a watch to wear on his wrist to tell him the time, one with an alarm on it to wake him. He picks up a small flash light, and a cheap calculator and goes back to buying the _Times_ instead of reading it on-line.

A week becomes two. This new life is an unsettling adventure. He sleeps on edge, wondering if Sherlock is looking for him. He buys a new coat, new trousers, the type that blend in with the Londoners on the sidewalks – charcoal, grey, near-black. A hat completes the disguise that is not a disguise. He thinks about growing a moustache but discards the idea after two days.

He’s limited only by the money in his bank account.

His mobile bill has already been paid when he goes on-line to check it.

He deliberately avoids all the usual places – a three-mile radius around 221B, the restaurants he loves, the shops, the cafes, the pubs. He moves from one hotel to another every few days. He tries out the pod hotel at Heathrow, just for fun.

It’s getting a bit old, this unanchored life. A month is too long to be without roots. But he still hasn’t sorted out that blistering hot orgasm, Amy’s lips around him, her body pressed between his knees, but his eyes – his eyes on Sherlock in the doorway. The instant doubling – tripling – of arousal when he realized they had a voyeur and that voyeur was Sherlock Holmes. Pulsing inside Amy’s mouth while in the flat he shared with Sherlock, smelling Sherlock in the air, staring at him, at Sherlock, frozen in the doorway.

Nor has he sorted out why Sherlock stood there, staring at _him_ when the natural course of action would have been to leave without a word, without a sound, with a quick look of apology, perhaps. Not to stand there watching – staring at – John’s face. John wondered what he looked like. Was he biting his bottom lip, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to hold back, to draw out the pleasure?

When he is down to only three hundred pounds in his account, there is suddenly more money there – enough to last another month. He considers closing his account and opening another but makes no move to do so.

Five

Sherlock finds him because he is brilliant, and he knows John, and can predict his patterns even when John is consciously trying to mix them up. Sherlock finding him proves that he can be calculatingly patient when needed, cussedly determined.

John has been eying an Italian restaurant for more than a week now, meaning to have dinner there one night, but the place is always crowded and he’d prefer a lighter crowd when dining alone. Eating alone is the worst part of living like this, followed closely by the loss of phone and laptop. Tuesdays are usually light, he knows, so he goes early, before six, and easily gets a good table, a booth near the window. The waiter who seats him is unusually helpful and friendly.

He has a glass of red wine in hand and a basket of bread before him when Sherlock Holmes slides into the booth across from him and unwraps the scarf from around his neck.

“Tell me you did this on your own,” John says. His voice trembles. He is surprised. Relieved. Angry. He was not expecting this. He feels stupid for being caught off-guard. “Tell me you didn’t have Mycroft on this.”

“I found you on my own. I didn’t have Mycroft on this,” Sherlock says. He is staring at John, at the unfamiliar clothing he is wearing. His eyes move down, rest on his left hand which trembles where it rests on the table. “Hello, John.” 

His voice is soft. His expression is open and genuine. He has played cat to John’s mouse, cop to his robber, but he does not pounce.

John is so very relieved this is over.

Sherlock asks for wine, and they place their order. Over dinner, John asks how he found him and Sherlock tells him. Everyone has to eat. So Sherlock identified a dozen affordable restaurants John would enjoy but had likely never been to. Gave them a photo of John. Paid them to call when John came in.

It has taken only two weeks.

The plan simply required that Sherlock know John – his habits, and preferences – and deduce how he would behave when trying to stay hidden in plain sight.

He’s had plenty to go on. How much John spends each day, on average, from an analysis of his ATM withdrawals. His favorite restaurants – Italian, Thai, interesting pubs. The times he likes to eat, his frustration with waiting more than a few minutes for a table. His likely preference for restaurants with televisions for patrons dining alone who don’t have their phones to keep them occupied during dinner.

Over coffee, Sherlock slides John’s mobile across the table. 

John stares at it. He’s missed it. His hand _itches_ to take it. Itches to grasp Sherlock’s wrist.

“We need to talk about it,” John forces himself to say. He keeps his hands in his lap.

“I don’t like seeing you with women,” Sherlock admits without prompting.

John snorts. “Then don’t watch,” he says.

“You know what I mean, John,” says Sherlock. “If you intend to bring women back to the flat when you return, one of us will need to move out.”

“One of us?” John asks. “It was your flat first, Sherlock. If you want me gone, I’ll go.”

Sherlock falters. John watches as an unreadable look passes over his face. He rests his forehead in one hand, presses his eyes closed then opens them again. John stares at him. He is not used to seeing Sherlock vulnerable. It unsettles him.

“I don’t want you gone.” He nearly spits it out, in a tone John has seldom heard from him. “I want you there. Both of us there. Just us. I didn’t think I’d have to _tell_ you this, John.”

John stares at him. He is strangling himself. He hates seeing Sherlock like this but _loves_ seeing him like this. 

“The women.” Sherlock is making himself go on, filling John’s deliberate silence. “Amy.” Why is this hard for him? This is _Sherlock Holmes_. Nothing embarrasses him. Nothing is hard for him. “I don’t…” He trails off.

“Sex,” John states, even though he really doesn’t need clarification. He’s out of his element. They’re both out of their elements here. “You don’t have sex.” He states it, because he needs to say it aloud. In all the time he’s been with Sherlock, living at 221B, he has no hard evidence that Sherlock has been with anyone. That Sherlock does not have sex should not surprise him in the least. What else could he possibly have meant?

Sherlock is eying him now with an odd mix of confusion and mirth. “Not often,” he admits. “But that isn’t what I meant.”

“Oh.” John stares at him, realization dawning. He nods. He stirs cream into his just-warmed up coffee. Sherlock is saying he doesn’t have sex with men. He doesn’t do to men what Amy was doing to him. “Well, I don’t either,” John explains.

“I didn’t imagine I could. Or that I’d want to,” Sherlock continues. He can’t be stopped now, now that he has begun to unleash the words. He is looking intently at John. His eyes are that odd mix of colors, grey and green and blue and hazel. He lowers his voice and is so decidedly _not_ Sherlock in this moment that John feels the walls of his reality shift. “But that day. That woman.” He exhales. “Amy.” He stares at John again. “I don’t want anyone else to see that look on your face, John. I don’t want anyone else to put it there.”

John has been gone from 221B five weeks and two days. He wonders if Sherlock came to this conclusion thirty seven days ago, or if it was a slow realization over time apart. How long has he known it himself? Or has he just realized it, coincident with Sherlock’s words? With his admission? His confession?

John knows he can kiss a man. He suspects he can do quite a bit more. He hasn’t been hiding from the thought that he might be gay, or bisexual. He’s been running from his attraction to Sherlock Holmes, brilliant. maddening, taking-him-for-granted mastermind detective who cancels trips without asking him, and tampers with his phone, and scares away his girlfriends, and hacks into his credit card account, and walks in on him while his prick is in Amy’s mouth and his hands are on her breasts and who _watches_ , watches him fuck her mouth and come down her throat with _his_ name unspoken on his lips. 

Sherlock’s name. Not Amy’s.

John moves his hand across the table, deliberately. It is shaking but he can’t do anything for it and doesn’t try. This is important. He can sense that. He can’t afford to bollix it up now. He rests his hand on Sherlock’s, grasping his wrist. 

“It wasn’t Amy,” he says. Sherlock looks at him, waiting. 

“That look on my face,” John continues. “She didn’t put it there.” He stares at his hand. His thumb is moving over Sherlock’s pulse point. He drops his voice to a whisper. “ _You_ did.”

Sherlock stares at him. Into his eyes. He lets out a slow breath, visibly relaxes. John releases his wrist and leans back. They stare at each other for a solid minute.

“Do you have plans tonight?” John asks at last.

“I need to clean the flat,” Sherlock answers. “Mrs. Hudson’s threatened to toss us out if I don’t find whatever’s rotting in the kitchen and get rid of it.” He stirs his coffee. “You?”

John signals the waiter for the check. “Just packing my things and moving back home,” he says.

“I’ll help,” says Sherlock. “Then you can help me avoid eviction.”

“Mrs. Hudson isn’t going to evict you,” John says. “She’d miss you too much.”

“She misses you,” corrects Sherlock. “She asks after you every day.”

John smiles. “Oh? What do you tell her?” he asks. He hands the waiter his credit card. There is no reason to continue using cash now.

“That your sister’s doing better,” Sherlock says. “That I expect you home any day.”

That, more than anything else, seals the deal for John. 

A domestic lie.

The acknowledgment of home.

When they leave the restaurant, they head toward John’s hotel. For the first time in weeks, John walks with his head up and his shoulders back. Unhurried. Suddenly, there is all the time in the world for whatever it is that comes next. Sherlock walks more slowly than he usually does and talks less. When they reach the hotel, he is a step ahead of John. He reaches forward for the door handle and pulls open the lobby door, then steps back and holds it open for John. There is a moment when they pause and look at each other, each waiting for the other to go ahead. It is awkward and unexpected and, in the end, terribly funny. They are giggling like teenagers as they walk together down the corridor toward John’s room. John steps ahead to slide his key card into the slot, then pushes open the door. He flicks on the light then stands back while Sherlock goes inside. He follows him in.

The door closes behind them. 

They don’t make it back to 221B that night. After all, John has already paid for the room. Neither one has been sleeping well lately, and it is late, and the bed is soft, and there is little to distract them except each other.

It is a foreign language they are learning, one they’ve heard murmured around them for months but have never dared to speak aloud themselves. But when Sherlock kisses John, it all becomes clear. The connection is made, more than lips to lips and mouth to mouth, and John is inordinately glad that Sherlock is not the first man he has kissed. With others to compare this kiss to, he knows the rightness of this is not because Sherlock is a man, but because Sherlock is Sherlock.

There is passion in their kissing. There is need in their touch.

There is that look in John’s eyes.

And only Sherlock puts it there. And only Sherlock will see it.

_Fin_


End file.
